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The low disk space warning works in LM 12. I've had it happen for the first time today. It even shows how much disk space is remaining with each warning. Got my first warning with 250mb remaining, then another warning with 200mb remaing. I deleted 2gb of stuff, and the warnings disappeared.

I AM SEARCHING FOR AN ANSWER AND THIS IS THE ONLY THING I FOUND CLOSE. I DO HAVE A LOW DISC SPACE ON MY /USR PARTITION. I HAVE SPACE IN THE OTHER END OF MY HDD. HOW CAN I COPY AND MOVE THIS PARTITION, OR IS IT NOT POSSIBLE? I CANNOT DELETE ANYTHING FROM THE PARTION USR. THANKS. SORRY IF THIS IS THE WRONG PLACE, BUT I COULD NOT FIND MUCH ABOUT THIS ISSUE. CHEERS, HAIRMAN.

I also have this problem and have been unable to find anything in the forum addressing it, even though this thread says it is 'solved'.

I have only 40k free and usually cannot open up the program.

Linux installed itself on a secondary hard drive with less free space than the primary one.

I gather uninstalling is very difficult (also no instructions, forum unclear).

I want to switch to Linux permanently but am not a sophisticated user despite having been on the computer since the early 1980's. I am finding it very hard to understand what is going on and think that Mint should come up with a much better Help Manual or something online with major issues clearly explained. The forum is way to vast, unstructured and haphazard, both thematically and chronologically.

I have tried 3 times in the past 7 years to switch over but each time find I get stumped by something for which no apparent solution emerges so I reluctantly go back to Windows where at least I can understand things like Hard Disk usage, partitions and so on.

Perhaps I should have backed up everything in an external drive (I don't yet have) and then started with totally fresh hard disk for Linux, but I am not ready to entirely abandon Windows until I know I can survive in Mint.

Anyway, what do I do with this low memory given that I have tons of free space on a different drive and partition but not much in the partition Linux arbitrarily selected during installation?

Do I have to re-install? Or what?

Any help appreciated as long as it has clear steps, otherwise will not be able to figure out.

Hairman wrote:I AM SEARCHING FOR AN ANSWER AND THIS IS THE ONLY THING I FOUND CLOSE. I DO HAVE A LOW DISC SPACE ON MY /USR PARTITION. I HAVE SPACE IN THE OTHER END OF MY HDD. HOW CAN I COPY AND MOVE THIS PARTITION, OR IS IT NOT POSSIBLE? I CANNOT DELETE ANYTHING FROM THE PARTION USR. THANKS. SORRY IF THIS IS THE WRONG PLACE, BUT I COULD NOT FIND MUCH ABOUT THIS ISSUE. CHEERS, HAIRMAN.

Is that what's causing your CAPS-LOCK button to stick on, lol?

caperash wrote:I also have this problem and have been unable to find anything in the forum addressing it, even though this thread says it is 'solved'.

I have only 40k free and usually cannot open up the program.

The OP's issue is solved. He was not trying to learn how to increase the amount of free-space on his system; he wanted to learn how to configure a "low disc(sic) space" warning - and he did.

You two might receive help quicker if you post a new thread with a subject that reflects your issue, as more people might end up reading your posts.

Regards,MDM

_____Proud to be a Mint user running 64-bit Mint 17 XFCE."Change should never be your goal but, instead, only a means to reach your goal."

I assume that Mate has an equivalent to the "housekeeping" plugin found in "mate-settings-daemon" instead of the old "gnome-settings-daemon"? I'm stuck on a windows box for a day or two so I can't check this out myself.

I just installed M14 a few days ago also and after installing a few programs & updates, movies, etc I am now getting the same warning issue (Low Disc Space) and unable to update anymore and Firefox is running in a very ltd mode (NO Bookmarks or History or working back arrow).

I found under "Systems" that my system file, the one on the top is now Maxx'd out at 10 GB though my Hard-drive is 500 GB large with about 450 GB unused....So HOW do I give more GB to that particular file to increase it from 10 GB to say 200GB? It seems that file is where everything is arbitrarily going.

jdhank wrote:I just installed M14 a few days ago also and after installing a few programs & updates, movies, etc I am now getting the same warning issue (Low Disc Space) and unable to update anymore and Firefox is running in a very ltd mode (NO Bookmarks or History or working back arrow).

I found under "Systems" that my system file, the one on the top is now Maxx'd out at 10 GB though my Hard-drive is 500 GB large with about 450 GB unused....So HOW do I give more GB to that particular file to increase it from 10 GB to say 200GB? It seems that file is where everything is arbitrarily going.

Out of curiosity, I looked for a "Systems" directory on my system in order to see how big my "system" file is. I do not have a Systems directory in my home directory or in my main / one. Is it buried several levels deep somewhere? Can you give the full name of this system file (is it, perhaps, called something else other than "system," and where exactly is it located)?

I read here in the forums about a really helpful app called BleachBit that, among other things, reclaimed a lot of wasted space on my hard drive and I ended up with some much needed free space. Unfortunately, I had to install it (it's in the repos, IIRC, so that's just a matter of typing bleachbit into Synaptic Package Manager - or whatever you use for your PM. However, if the partition that you installed linux is so full that you have lost some basic functionality in your web browser, I would guess that you do not have room to download/install anything at this time.

If you do not regularly "sanitize" Firefox, it can end up taking space with its history/cache/et cetera (depending on your settings and browsing habits). You might try running Firefox, going to Edit/Preferences/Privacy, and click on "clear your recent history" (it's probably in blue). In the box that pops up, you could check everything or choose not to check Cookies and Active Logins so that you remain logged in to the forums (etc.) that you visit and your preferences for the websites will remain. If you choose to skip those two, I suggest that after you click on "Clear Now" (and it deletes the data you told it to, which will probably take a few seconds), you should then click on "remove individual cookies" (also in blue text in the /Preferences/Privacy settings area) and remove any that do not look like they are serving a useful purpose (IOW, remove any that have "ads" in the name, lol, but also remove any for websites that you do not plan to visit again, those for websites that you have not set any preferences for and do not have any "history" you wish to keep such as forum reading history and the like; use your own judgment - you can generally delete ALL your cookies without actual danger, but it would clear your settings at all (more or less) websites).

The above should give you a little free space on the partition that Firefox stores things on, which hopefully will be the same one with the "system" file you are concerned about. It won't be a huge amount of space (at least on mine it never is, but I do "browser maintenance" regularly because I have concerns (and some remaining hope ) about my privacy. A "couple" of times I have ended up taking my linux partition right down to 0 free space (I know, I know... it speaks highly of Mint in particular and linux in general that this hasn't brought me trouble - but it is probably Not a Good Idea ) and it did give me the room I needed to deal with it.

One thing though, if it's that full, I guess you could have some issues trying to do the above steps (IDK). Another thing you can safely delete in order to get more "emergency working space" is to go into your home directory (as in /home/{your user name}) and delete your file manager's thumbnail image cache. The directory you want to delete is called ".thumbnails," and the . at the beginning of its name means it is normally hidden. If you don't see it - along with a lot of other files that start with "." - then press Ctrl-h to tell your file manager to allow you to view hidden files. The reason it is safe to delete the .thumbnails directory is that it will just be created again the next time your file manager creates any image thumbnails. But it starts out small and grows over time (and if you tend to delete and/or move files to other partitions, it tends to have thumbnails in it that you don't use anyway).

Make sure you are actually deleting (aka "permanently delete") things instead of just moving them into your Trash directory. After you highlight the .thumbnails directory (or any file/directory you wish to delete), press SHIFT-delete (at least on my system) to actually delete it. Speaking of which, you should make sure your Trash directory is empty. It is probably listed on the left in your file manager; assuming it is, right-click on it and select "Empty Trash" from the context-menu that pops up. (If that entry is grayed out, it most likely means your Trash directory is empty.)

Do the .thumbnails and Trash first, then clear Firefox. Hopefully - and probably - that will give you room to install BleachBit. Please search in the forums for that term and read some of the threads that pop up. BleachBit is a great tool, but you should be aware of the basics of using it so as to make informed choices and minimize any possible dangers.

It goes without saying, but delete/move any files that you don't need.

Having said (err... typed) all of that, I think what you really need to do is to increase the size of the partition that you are operating from. But this will give you a little space, which will allow you to install BleachBit, which will give you a little (maybe quite a bit) more. If you can tell us how you have your hard drive set up - what partitions you have, what size they are and what is on them (data, OS, etc.), and if there is any free (non-partitioned) space on it, that would help someone make suggestions for a more permanent solution.

Regards,MDM

_____Proud to be a Mint user running 64-bit Mint 17 XFCE."Change should never be your goal but, instead, only a means to reach your goal."

OK, so when I go to System Information, under my "Filesystems" it displays "Useage" as: (what I guess is my problem), ie "100% (0.0 B of 10.7GiB)" for Device "/dev/sda5" and Mount Point "/" so this file/Device is apparently Max'd out.

Conversely the file on the very bottom of the displayed list shows: "8.58% (401.9 GiB of 439.6 GiB)" of Device "/dev/sda2 and Mount Point "/media/johnh/TI105838W0G" so this one has about 8.58 % being used.

Is there a way to open up the first File/Device to give it more storage (GiB)?

caperash wrote:I also have this problem and have been unable to find anything in the forum addressing it, even though this thread says it is 'solved'. I have only 40k free and usually cannot open up the program.

That's when your system drive turns into a "read only" drive, LOL.

caperash wrote:Linux installed itself on a secondary hard drive with less free space than the primary one.

Uh, maybe it was to blame. You could have chosen the "do something else" option and installed it to the drive you wanted instead.

caperash wrote: I gather uninstalling is very difficult (also no instructions, forum unclear).

Nope, it's easy. You run a LIVE CD or DVD and open gparted and remove the partitions you want gone and it's all over.

caperash wrote:I want to switch to Linux permanently but am not a sophisticated user despite having been on the computer since the early 1980's. I am finding it very hard to understand what is going on and think that Mint should come up with a much better Help Manual or something online with major issues clearly explained. The forum is way to vast, unstructured and haphazard, both thematically and chronologically.

You could google for linux 101 and dummies books on it, there's a few links available to full versions of the Dummy type books and they are fairly good. The Mint Manual is aimed at the particular distro and not at providing general knowledge of Linux itself, that's somewhat assumed.

caperash wrote:I have tried 3 times in the past 7 years to switch over but each time find I get stumped by something for which no apparent solution emerges so I reluctantly go back to Windows where at least I can understand things like Hard Disk usage, partitions and so on.

Same here. I used to play around with early Knoppix distros, but wanted more than was being provided at the time for a desktop environment. For me Linux has arrived as a desktop friendly OS with the right distro. For windows users, Mint and various of the "ubuntus" like Lubuntu and Kubuntu seem sufficient if given time to adjust to them. I'd say it takes the average windows user about 2-4 months depending on how occasional the usage is as the transition. Mint has a file manager that can show you disk usage same as explorer does in windows. It show the size of drives, you can right clk on the icon and get info concerning space used and space available in Properties. Gparted will show partitions. You can also open terminal and run blkid or fdisk -l, and various other commands. One favorite of mine to get a lot of information is from the inxi command run in terminal

caperash wrote:Perhaps I should have backed up everything in an external drive (I don't yet have) and then started with totally fresh hard disk for Linux, but I am not ready to entirely abandon Windows until I know I can survive in Mint.

What I did before installing to hard drive was a process. First I used Virtual Box in Windows and tried out various Linux distros using it to babysit the interface with hardware to see what I liked the most. Next was to do full install (not a LIVE install) of the distros I wanted to test more onto 16GB flash drives. My favorite for least problems caused by flash media were the Kingston DTSE9 which cost $10-12. Slow on boot but let me discover and fix any possible hardware conflicts or decide to seek some other distro. Once it's booted and in RAM it's fast enough. Finally used "something else" installation and put on hard drives to use.

caperash wrote:Anyway, what do I do with thislow memory given that I have tons of free space on a different drive and partition but not much in the partition Linux arbitrarily selected during installation? Do I have to re-install? Or what?Any help appreciated as long as it has clear steps, otherwise will not be able to figure out. Thxs!

(low memory = short on disc space.+)It's not as difficult as you think. Open GParted and create partitions on that drive which are bigger than the ones you currently use, same number, same setup for / root, swap, etc. You can then copy and paste the older partitions one by one from the first drive into the new partitions on the second drive. You then do a GRUB install on that second drive if not there already and then run the grub update. Later when you are confident all is well you can remove the system from the previous drive, in manner mentioned above.

jdhank wrote:I just installed M14 a few days ago also and after installing a few programs & updates, movies, etc I am now getting the same warning issue (Low Disc Space) and unable to update anymore and Firefox is running in a very ltd mode (NO Bookmarks or History or working back arrow).

I found under "Systems" that my system file, the one on the top is now Maxx'd out at 10 GB though my Hard-drive is 500 GB large with about 450 GB unused....So HOW do I give more GB to that particular file to increase it from 10 GB to say 200GB? It seems that file is where everything is arbitrarily going.

Y,Jdh

See if you have this problem.Even if not to that degree, you can turn off the sending of reports, remove those folders or mark them "read only" so firefox won't write to them anymore and solve some of the space problem. You really should have started a new thread about this problem. If have room to the end of that partition, you can stretch it in Gparted to the right to make it larger.

My 2 Linux Centos machines (versions 5.6 and 6.2) have a little program called Logwatch. Every day at a pre-set time (I use 0200 Hrs) it will read all the relevant logs and send a summary to me in an email. You can set the level of output so you get a huge amount of info, useful if there is a problem, not so much or just minimal; my everyday setting. Whichever setting you use, one of the bits of info is the amount of disk usage in percentage terms. At present I am using 61% of my home LVM partition. If I use more than 80% it adds a warning saying that my available disk space is getting low. It is an excellent tool and would help no end if it were available in Mint.

A general rule of thumb with Linux is that when disk space gets below around 6% that things can start acting strange. Linux uses part of that disk space, I believe typically in /var/run and possibly other directories. I particualrly ran into that problem on an old Ubuntu system, though this Debain one does 'act up' as it fills up . Note that Swap partitions (2 here) do not reduce the effect.

While large installs can be handdled across multiple disks with LVMs, it usually requires entire directory trees to be mounted seperately, ie: /, /home, /usr, var on different disks

Another method is the *incremental* approach. Add a disk, mount it to something like /newdisk - and symlink large individual directories or trees, like usr/src, /doc and others to it. HOWEVER.. this method, at least here in Debian has a downside: some functions, like those used in bootup and even in dpkg do not seem to like symlinks. I find that I cannot relocate my entire /home tree with it, but I can certainly relocate portions of it. Basically non-system critical apps and utilities can be relocated. I would not, for example relocate system Perl, but the /site directories are certainly symlinkable,

For those running low on laptops, it may be possible to mount a stick as a drive, and symlink the docs, games and non-essential utils to it. I have /opt symlinked, and with no problems.

Using a good file manager like mc makes symlinking a simple, and even trivial matter. (No typing byzantine directory trees!)